Mac Software

I may get fired for saying this, but I miss the convenience, focus, and robustness of desktop apps. Sometimes I just want the clarity of a dedicated app--or the isolation; all too often when I'm in a browser, a rogue JavaScript-heavy site will crash not just its own window but the 20 different tabs I have open at that moment.

Building a Site-Specific Browser (SSB) is possible with technologies like Prism from Mozilla, but that doesn't do much for non-developer users. If all you want is an icon to click on your desktop to open a specific URL, … Read more

iTunes makes it really easy to put music from your computer onto your iPod--unfortunately, the reverse is not true. If you want to get music from your iPod onto your computer--say, if you had a hard-drive failure, or you just bought a new Mac--you either need to know how to use Terminal or you need an app like Senuti.

This cleverly named utility essentially does what iTunes does backwards, acting as an "iPod ripper" that lets you move your music, playlists, videos, everything, onto your Mac. Senuti has been around for a few years, but it's still … Read more

Originally intended for blogging, but customizable into just about any configuration, WordPress is the Firefox of cross-platform content management systems, including the iPhone. Extensible and proud of it, the program itself is known for having one of the simplest installations of any CMS available.

The download is a ZIP file that comes with instructions on how to install it to your server, requiring an FTP client and administrator-level rights. Documentation for the ''five-minute install'' at its Web site is extensive, clear, and concise. The WordPress support forums haven't failed me yet in answering even my most difficult questions.

Without … Read more

We've talked about Simplify Media here before as a great way to listen to music from your friends' iTunes music libraries (Windows and Mac). In fact, Simplify Media was one of our 10 best downloads of 2007. The minute you fire it up, you'll see why--as long as you and your friend both have a free account with Simplify Media, you can stream and listen to each others entire music collections on both Windows and Mac. But, the latest release of Simplify Media for iPhone and iPod Touch lets you take all of that music with you.

To … Read more

Today I had one of those what-the-heck software moments that occurs when a program breaks where it's least expected. A premier feature in the iPhone application I was tinkering with had vanished after a version update.

1Password for iPhone, first reviewed by my colleague Josh Lowensohn, is better known by its Mac counterpart, which encrypts log-ons and passwords on the Mac and automatically fills them in on Web pages. Windows users can think of it as the rough equivalent to RoboForm.

Since a smooth move like that requires multiple programs to run concurrently--something presently prohibited for iPhone applications--1Password for … Read more

The problem with opening PDF files in Firefox is that it tends to slow down your performance, especially if you open a number of them. This simple little extension gives you complete control over PDF files in a Toolbar button.

Rather than stick you all alone with a browser-jarring PDF file, the PDF Download extension provides you the option to: download the file locally, open it with Firefox using the PDF download options settings, view the PDF as an HTML file in the browser, bypass PDF Download, or cancel the link. The first two options are self-explanatory, while the "… Read more

A funny thing happened on the way to Boston: the CNET office disappeared. Our Cambridge office is moving to a new location, so when I arrived on the East Coast for a short stay, I found myself without a cube to call home. More importantly, I couldn't work from a computer already inside the CNET firewall, which left me with two choices: use a VPN client, or use a remote access program.

I haven't encountered a single VPN client review without some degree of legitimate complaint, and my own experience with them has left much to be desired. … Read more

On Tuesday, blog commenting add-on tool Disqus is launching version 2.0 of its free service. Many of the biggest changes are on the back end, but the user-facing elements have been given many small tweaks that should make it a faster, more approachable solution for the mass market.

I chatted with co-founder Daniel Ha about it on Monday, and he says one of the biggest changes blog owners are going to notice is the plug-in support. The plug-in with the most improvement is WordPress, which can now be moderated from inside of WordPress' admin area instead of on Disqus alone. (Download WordPress from CNET Download.com.) All comments are also synced up both locally and to Disqus' servers, so if Disqus goes down your comments won't. Likewise, you'll be able to copy over Disqus comments to your existing system if you decide to ditch it later on down the line.

For commenters, the experience has also been improved. Gone is the up and down voting system, which has been replaced with a simple up button to give a good comment a nod, and smarter tools to flag offensive or otherwise spammy comments. Commenters who write a veritable opus can now turn that nine-paragraph work into its own standalone blog post that lives right on Disqus' servers, where other users can comment and interact with it. Ha says he's not trying to take away from existing platforms, but give these really good, in-depth comments their own place to start another conversation without completely thread-jacking the conversation that's going on there. Think of it kind of like FriendFeed, but using the same engine people are used to.

These are just some of the improvements with the updated platform. Disqus comments are now SEO-friendly systemwide, so your blog posts will be indexed both by content and discussion. The administrative area of Disqus has also been tweaked slightly to be simpler to manage across multiple blogs, although there's still no way to mass delete messages via search query, or select multiple messages from a list like you can in some blogging tools' stock comment systems. After having used Disqus to power our Webware 100 2008 award pages, the lack of mass edits and deletes was one of the only weaknesses that really bugged me. Luckily it's something Ha says is working in testing and will be coming soon in another update.

Disqus is currently in use with about 30,000 blogs and competes with tools like SezWho, IntenseDebate, and JS-Kit to enhance the built-in functionality found in mass-market blogging platforms. To play around with the new system I've embedded it below. You can also check it out by visiting one of our Webware 100 2008 winner profile pages. … Read more

Six Apart is announcing Tuesday night the launch of Movable Type 4.2 (download from CNET) and Movable Type Pro. The 4.2 platform gives blog publishers better performance, according to Six Apart. But the really interesting thing about this launch is the new social features in MT Pro.

Movable Type Pro will enable "social publishing," which is a fancy way of saying readers of MT blogs will now be able to do much more than just reply to posts in the comments. Readers will get profiles pages with "walls," and the capability to rate other … Read more